China: A group of Manchu court ladies posing with the wives of foreign diplomats, Beijing, late 19th century

China: A group of Manchu court ladies posing with the wives of foreign diplomats, Beijing, late 19th century

The Manchu people are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchuria (today's northeastern China) and one of the 56 ethnic groups of People's Republic of China. During their rise in the 17th century they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911. For centuries, the Manchu ethnic group has acculturated with the majority Han ethnicity of China. Most Manchu today speak Standard Chinese, while the Manchu language is only spoken by elderly people in remote northeastern China and a few scholars. In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in Manchu culture among both ethnic Manchus and Han. The number of Chinese today with some Manchu ancestry is quite large—with 10.68 million members, Manchu is the 3rd largest ethnic group in China after the Han and the Zhuang. The adoption of favorable policies towards ethnic minorities (such as preferential university admission, government employment opportunities and exemption from the one child policy) has encouraged some people with mixed Han and Manchu ancestry to re-identify themselves as Manchu.

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